Apple may launch a cheap version of HomePod this year (picture from @macrumors)

Sina Digital News reported on the morning of February 10 that two years have passed since Apple released the HomePod. The HomePod is Apple’s first smart speaker that supports Siri. Although Apple has been emphasizing the excellent sound quality of the HomePod, due to the sale The price is high, and HomePod has not fully opened up the market. According to foreign media macrumors, Apple may launch a cheap version of HomePod as early as this year, and the sound quality will shrink.

In the early days of the launch, the HomePod price was US$349, and Apple lowered the price to US$299 in April 2019. Apple has never disclosed the sales of HomePod and classifies HomePod as “wearable devices”, “home products” and accessories.

Although according to Apple’s first quarter 2020 financial report, revenue from wearable devices, household products and accessories was US$10.01 billion, a year-on-year increase of 36.9% from US$7.308 billion in the same period last year. This is the biggest surprise in Apple’s financial report this quarter. But in fact, most of the growth in Apple’s wearable business is attributed to Apple Watch and AirPods.

However, the key factor restricting HomePod sales is not the “smart” slot, but the price. The price of US$349 is slightly more expensive than competing products launched earlier.

However, there is news recently that Apple may launch a low-cost version of HomePod, which will be sold to users who prefer small size and do not have high requirements for the diversity of functions, but the product features will definitely shrink.

In the early days of HomePod’s launch, the media and users commented that the sound quality was excellent, but there were still some lack of intelligence, especially Siri’s poor performance. In the past few years, Apple has been steadily improving the usefulness of HomePod by adding features such as switching support, multi-user voice detection, and ambient sound. So according to macrumors, the low-cost version of HomePod is expected to start with sound quality, cutting the 7 tweeters at the bottom of the HomePod into two, in order to save cost.

Apple is expected to release a new iPhone in mid-March. It may be the long-rumored iPhone SE2, and finally it may be called the iPhone 9. We will wait and see whether the new HomePod will be released together. (Yuze)